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Your supports of the ministry at Mariner's equips us to reach our world with the hope of Jesus and serve those around us in His name. Thanks for your generosity and God bless you. Welcome to the Mariner's Church Life Group Leader Podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms and changes the world together.
Well, here we are. This is week three and actually the final week in our series Are You There God Unpacking the Book of Esther Together. This has been an impactful series. I mean, there's so much that's happening within this book from the first week.
We looked at really a difficult set of circumstances that beg the question of where is God in the middle of difficulty and when he seems to be silent, is he somehow far off not involved with our suffering is even here our cries. And then week two, we saw miraculously this incredible reversal of circumstances where really we see that passage play out where what the enemy meant for evil. God turned and he used for good, which we really that's kind of the lige of our faith that God takes broken things. He takes difficulties and he doesn't just heal them, but he redeems them.
He uses them for his purposes. He takes our greatest bad, murdering his son on the cross and he uses it for our greatest good. And so we hope that last week you've had a great time to have those conversations and look back and celebrate where you've seen the movement of God's kingdom in your life. And so this is going to be a great conclusion to this series as we look back, reflect on where we've seen God at work, but also as we look forward to how God wants to continue to work through us.
So Jeremy, why don't you go ahead and lead us through status up as you do so brilliantly to steward this conversation really well in our groups this week. Yeah, that was a great way to put it, John, about looking back at the text and looking back at the things that we've been through in this little mini series, but then also looking forward to what God wants to do because this week really is all about that kind of application. It really is okay, now on the personal level, what might God want to do with me where I am, we don't believe that we are who we are and where we are with opportunities that we have, whatever they may be, just coincidentally, we believe that God is both sovereign and that in his providence, he is both God, he is in control and he's good, he is working things out for his purpose. And so this week, we want to look back.
Don't worry if you haven't looked at the leader guide yet, you don't have five more chapters to cover this week, we're just going to zero back in on that key verse in Esther 414. Let me read it real quick. It says this is Mordecai, you remember speaking to Esther, if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father's family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.
And what powerful words there that we see from Mordecai 1, speaking of just, again, of God's sovereignty and providence that God can work things out, but he invites us into that story to be a part of what he wants to do. And I love in the intro how you said that in the story, there's this miraculous turn of events. And this is my greatest hope for people as they go through these life group, these discussions over these past three weeks, including this one, is that we will see the choices that we make in our day-to-day lives as no less miraculous than, say, Jesus turning water into wine or Moses at the burning bush, some of those things that we think of as miracles, because we see the story truly as a miraculous turn of events, but it was all through just very common choices to be brave, to stand up, to act with humility, to trust that doing the right thing was ultimately going to be the right thing to do. That's so good.
That's great. It's kind of that long obedience to the same direction of just being faithful to what God calls us to in the everyday, ordinary rhythms of our lives. And that's the reality for all of us, isn't it? Where we are striving, sometimes I'm striving, a lot of times I'm striving, but we are living in this reality of trying to follow Jesus with the best that we can and often wondering, man, do my choices, do they help, do they contribute?
Where I've been placed, is that of significance or is this all just kind of happenstance? Would God actually want to use me? Does he have a plan for me or is his best plans reserved for people who stand on stages and read the Bible to thousands of people? How would he want to want to use me?
And what we see time and time again is God uses us all. He just invites us into a story with our faithful obedience. It doesn't mean we get it right all the time, but that he has placed us all in very specific context with relationships and our vocations and our neighborhoods and he wants to use us. That's incredibly humbling.
He doesn't need to. In one sense, he doesn't have to use us, but he chooses. He chooses to, which is just a beautiful reality that we get to co-labor with God in his work of making his kingdom known. And again, through the ordinary everyday occurrences of our lives.
Yeah, it's beautiful and it's really liberating when we stop to think that God's choosing to invite me into this to work in and through me, but he's not dependent on me getting it right. I don't know how many times I've been scared throughout my life to either do the wrong, what if I make the wrong choice and I miss God's will? Or what if I say the wrong thing and I don't share the gospel right and I turn this person away from God because I said the wrong thing? But just to remember that God's inviting us into something that he's already doing.
And so he's not dependent on us getting it right, though we do want to be faithful and we see here this boldness and this faithfulness in both Mordecai and Esther and how he uses that not only in their own lives, but in the lives of his people. And we brought up last week how this is something that is still celebrated to this day. People tell this story over and over as a way to remind them that God can and often has done the unthinkable on behalf of his people for his purposes. So this week, what I want to encourage people to really think about in their day-to-day lives as they put these pieces together is two questions.
One is where might God have positioned you within your circle of influence, be it your neighborhood, whatever. Think back on the stories maybe that we've told the past couple of weeks where we've prayerfully identified something that seemed hopeless or where someone we knew maybe needed to see the move of God. Last week we looked at ways God uses things to kind of turn the tide and we see the great reversal to where he refreshes and renews and redeems all things for good. So maybe think of those situations and now add that final step of so what might God want you to do?
Maybe you are in the Esther type position of what can I do to make a difference to do the right thing even if I don't know if it's going to matter if it's going to work or how might you maybe be in the Mordecai type position. Maybe I'm not in the one who has the power or the authority but I have a friendship. I have someone I know who trusts me, I have their ear. How might I give some counsel and encourage someone else to step up and do what maybe God wants to do in and through them which is just as important as being we often want to think how might I be like Esther which you may be but how might we also be like Mordecai?
That's so good. Yeah we all need that. We need to be the recipients and the expressers of encouragement in our communities. I mean many of you you're leading groups right now because somebody invited you into that because they saw something in you that you likely didn't see in yourself and so there is a great gift when we can speak that life over someone else and call them into what they may not be able to see God doing in the moment but because of your disturbance and because of your encouragement you can really see somebody come alive and they're gifting and they're calling and I love what you're talking about Jeremy.
One of my greatest prayers is just give me eyes to see what you're doing and really it was the prayer of Jesus. Jesus who often said you know I only do what I see my father doing and there's a switch in that. I think often my prayer if I'm honest is God here's what I'm doing will you bless it rather than God where are you at work and what can I bless what you're already doing and the great way to start with that is to be open where have you been placed how can you begin to not see the set of circumstances that you've been given as barriers or obstacles but actually as opportunities for mission that God is not only sovereign but he is intentional and he has a plan for you as an individual and corporately for your group and so I'm so excited this is what we passionately believe you're at Mariners that are life groups there are more than Bible studies they're more than social support groups but these are environments where the kingdom gets to outbreak in your group but also through your group to reach others with the gospel of Jesus Christ so our hope again is that this has just been a really engaging a vibrant series as you looked at God's word but also that it's giving you some handles and things to step out to in faith encourage as you encourage one another and as you step into more for all that God would have for you. So as always we're praying for you we believe that God has given you everything that you need the gift of the spirit others in community to really live out what he has for you so enjoy this a final conversation this week series and we look forward to equipping you and also hearing from you love to hear from you and how God is using this series in this conversation to really foster a sense of community and mission within your groups.